Jane and the Ghosts of Netley

Chapter 2 Beauty’s Mask

25 October 1808, cont.

I cannot say how Orlando had achieved Netley Abbey, for I espied no stranger’s dory hidden along the shingle as we hurried in the direction of Mr. Hawkins. The falling dark and spitting rain hastened our footsteps, but still the old seaman was there before us, in attendance upon his sturdy craft — George having blown his whistle manfully for the better part of our descent. The Bosun’s Mate’s surprise at finding a fourth among our party was very great. He glowered at the green-cloaked sprite, and said by way of greeting: “I’d a thought you had more sense, miss, than to take up with strangers.”

“Mr. Smythe. is a very old acquaintance — fortuitously met on our road to the Abbey.”

Orlando bowed; the Bosun’s Mate scowled.

“We have suffered an alteration in our plans, Mr. Hawkins,” I said. “Would you be so good as to intercept that naval vessel presently dropping anchor in Southampton Water? I should like to be swung aboard.”

“Swung aboard!” George cried. “Oh, Aunt — may we bear you company? I should dearly love to set foot in a fighting ship!”

“It is not to be thought of,” I replied briskly.

“Your grandmamma will be every moment expecting you.”

“But — Aunt !”

“The young gentlemen, Mr. Hawkins, should be conveyed at once to the Water Gate Quay, and thence to Castle Square.”

Edward and George groaned with disappointment; the Bosun’s Mate stared keenly across the Solent. “That brig is never the Windlass? She didn’t ought to be in home waters; ordered to the Peninsula in July, she was, and not expected back ’til Christmas.”

“You know the better part of the Captain’s orders,” Orlando observed quietly, “but not, I think, the whole of them.”

Mr. Hawkins cleared his throat and spat. “It’s a rum business, all the same. Get into the boat wi’ ye, Mr. Smythe — and haul an oar if ye’ve a mind to reach that brig by nightfall.”

It was nearly dark as the skiff pulled alongside the Windlass, and though a brig will never equal a ship of the line, the sides of the vessel soared above our tiny craft. Edward stared; George’s mouth was agape; and at a blast of Mr. Hawkins’s whistle, a lanthorn appeared at the rail. The bosun’s chair was let down. From the speed and efficiency of these movements, I judged that we were expected — nay, that we had long been observed in our passage up the Solent, and the chair readied against my arrival.[4]

“Shall you be quite safe, Aunt?” George’s voice quavered.

“Safe as the Houses of Parliament, my dear.”

Edward frowned. “What must we tell Grandmamma?”

“That an acquaintance of your Uncle Frank — an officer of the Royal Navy — had news of him that could not wait.”

“You’re bamming,” George scoffed.

“I shan’t be above an hour; but you are not to put off dinner.”

I had suffered the bosun’s chair before, in being swung aboard my brother’s commands; but never had I attempted the exercise in darkness. Orlando hastened to assist me.

“I’ll see the young gentlemen safe at home,”

Hawkins said, “but I’ll return, miss, to ferry you to shore. Friends or no friends, I’m loath to leave you with this crew. Lord knows what they might get up to.”

A jeering laugh from above put paid to his sentiments; at a word from Orlando, I was borne aloft. I gripped the chair’s rope in one gloved hand, and with the other, waved gaily to my nephews; but in truth, I was wild for them all to be gone. I could think only of the man who waited within, by the light of a ship’s lanthorn.

“My dear Miss Austen.”

He received me quite alone, in Captain Strong’s quarters, where a handsome Turkey carpet vied for pride of place with a folding desk. He had been absorbed in composing a letter, but rose as though he had long been in the habit of meeting me thus, and not a stranger these two years. His grey eyes were piercing as ever, his silver hair as full and shining, his looks more engaging than I had seen them last — and his whole figure such a blend of elegance and arrogance, that I felt I had never been truly admiring him before with justice.

He grasped my gloved hand and raised it to his lips. “How fortunate that Orlando should have chanced to find you.”

“I suspect that Orlando does nothing by chance.”

“But for a lady to answer such a summons so swiftly must be extraordinary. I am in your debt, Jane. Are you well?”

“As you see. I need not enquire after your health, my lord. The Peninsula clearly agrees with you.”

His eyes glinted. “The Peninsula? Have you busied yourself with researches? What else have you learned?”

“Nothing to the purpose. I was as astonished at your man’s appearance as anyone could be.”

“And yet you hastened aboard — to my infinite relief.” He lifted my chin and studied my countenance.

“You are a trifle peaked, Jane, even by lamplight. I cannot approve the shadows under your eyes.”

“I have had a good deal on my mind of late.”

“So have we all. You should not wear black, my dear — you are far too sallow to support the shade. Willow green, I think, or Bishop’s blue.” His gaze roved over my figure. “Bombazine! But surely you are not in mourning?”

“My brother Edward has been so unfortunate as to lose his wife.”

“Not Mrs. Elizabeth Austen? Of Godmersham Park?”

I inclined my head. Lord Harold had been privileged to meet Lizzy once, during a flying visit to Kent in the summer of 1805; she had bewitched him, of course, as she had everyone who knew her.

“Such a pretty woman! And hardly out of her youth! It does not bear thinking of. Childbirth, I suppose?”

My countenance must have turned, for he said abruptly, “Forgive me. I ought not to have pried. But I was never very delicate where you were concerned.”

“I understand that you have lately suffered a similar bereavement. I was most unhappy to learn of Her Grace’s passing.”

“It was not unexpected, Jane — but it could not have occurred at a more troubled season.”

“My lord, why are you come to Southampton?”

“In pursuit of a woman,” he replied thoughtfully.

“A beautiful and cunning creature I should not trust with a newborn kitten. I am hard on her heels — and but for this matter of death rites, should have subdued her long since.”

Whatever I might have feared — whatever I might have expected — it was hardly this. I was overcome, of a sudden, by foolish anger; hot tears started to my eyes.

“You asked that I dance attendance — cut short my nephews’ pleasure party, confound my friends, and be swung aboard your ship — so that you might boast of your conquests? Good God, sir! Have you no decency?”

“What a question for Jane to pose,” he replied brusquely. “You must know that I abandoned decency for necessity long ago. My every thought is bent upon Sophia. When you have seen her, you will comprehend why. She is magnificent — she is perilous — and I shall not rest until I have her in my grasp.”

I turned for the cabin door. “It is no longer in my power to remain, sir. Be so good as to summon a party of seamen to convey me to the Quay.”

“Have you heard of the Treaty of Tilsit, Jane?”

My hand on the latch, I stopped short.

“—the document forged last year between the Tsar of All The Russias, and the Emperor Napoleon? The treaty sets out, in no uncertain terms, the division of Europe between the two powers. It describes the destruction of England.”

“I have heard the name.”

“It is for Tilsit I was sent to Portugal. It is for Tilsit that good men have died — nay, shall yet die in droves — on the Iberian Peninsula. Are you not curious to learn more of such a potent subject?”

“My brother convoyed the English wounded from Vimeiro,” I said faintly. “He delivered French prisoners to Spithead as recently as September.”[5]

“It shall not be the last time.” Lord Harold’s voice was sharp with weariness. “Come away from the door, Jane. We have much to discuss.”

• • •

It is now nearly a twelvemonth since Napoleon Buonaparte placed his brother Joseph upon the throne of a unified Iberia — a move occasioned by the sudden descent of French soldiers on their trusted allies’ soil. At the close of last year, the Spanish king fled to Paris; and though the Portuguese crown declared war on England, Buonaparte pronounced the kingdom null and void regardless. The Portuguese royal family chose exile in Brazil, their fleet escorted by Britain’s Royal Navy — which did not care to see good ships fall into the Monster’s hands.

The Chief Secretary for Ireland, Lieutenant General Sir Arthur Wellesley, urged our current government to challenge the French on behalf of the Iberians.[6] The decision to invade was seconded by the Navy, which yearned to deny Buonaparte use of Lisbon’s deep-water harbour. Thirdly, the lives of British subjects were at issue, for the town of Oporto is overrun with Englishmen engaged in the Port wine trade. The idea that purveyors of domestic comfort — so vital, now that the wine from French vineyards is denied us — should be abandoned to the Enemy, aroused indignation in every breast.

Public sentiment on behalf of ports, Port, and the Portuguese ran so high that Sir Arthur sailed from Cork in July and touched first at Corunna and Oporto, where the British and natives alike regarded him as a liberator. I know this not merely from official accounts forwarded to London newspapers, but from my brother Frank, who escorted Sir Arthur’s troopships to the Portuguese coast.

By the first week in August, however, Wellesley’s fortunes were in decline. He found himself at the head of some thirteen thousand men, but short of cavalry mounts and supply waggons — and on the very eve of Vimeiro, superseded in his command by the arrival of no less than six superior generals, despatched by a nervous Crown. Frank’s ship, the St. Alban’s, stood out to sea off the heights of Merceira, and witnessed the French attack on the twenty-first of August. In the event, Sir Arthur proved too clever for Marshal Junot, who was thoroughly routed; but Generals Burrard and Dalrymple, Wellesley’s superiors, declined to pursue the retreating Enemy. As the St. Alban’s carried off the wounded English and the French prisoners, the British commanders signed a document of armistice, allowing the defeated Junot to send his men, artillery, mounts, and baggage back to France— in British ships. Public reaction to this infamy was so violent, that Dalrymple, Burrard, and Wellesley were called before a Court of Enquiry in September. King George censured Dalrymple; Parliament denounced the armistice. My brother fulminated for weeks against the stupidity of landsmen. Sir Arthur Wellesley, though protesting that he deplored the armistice, had signed the document — and thus shared his superiors’ disgrace. Nothing would answer the public outcry so thoroughly as a re-engagement on the Peninsula, with the Honourable General Sir John Moore, a celebrated soldier, at the head of a stout army. The General is presently encamped with twenty-three thousand men somewhere near Corunna; and we live in daily expectation of victory.

“Buonaparte has quit Paris,” Lord Harold told me, “and is on the road for Madrid. He intends to join Soult, wherever the Marshal is encamped.”

“I should not like to be in Sir John Moore’s shoes.”

“Of course not — your own half-boots are far more cunning, Jane, though they are black. But do not pity General Moore. There has not been such a command for a British officer since the days of Marlborough.”

“You believe, then, that we shall drive the French out of Portugal and Spain?”

“On the contrary: I hope that we are mired in the Peninsula’s muck for years to come. Only by forcing the Emperor to engage us on land, can we divert him from his mortal purpose — the destruction of England’s Navy, and with it, England herself.”

I laughed at him. “Do not make yourself anxious, my lord. The Royal Navy should never accept defeat.”

“Fine words, Jane. But you laugh at your peril. Buonaparte knows that he cannot prevail so long as England has her Navy; we know that England cannot survive so long as France possesses Buonaparte, and his Grand Armée. To defeat us, the Monster must seize or build more ships than we command: he cannot hope to destroy the Royal Navy with less than two vessels for every one of ours.”

“But Buonaparte thinks like a grenadier, not a sailor. Consider Trafalgar! French ships — aye, and Spanish, too! — routed, captured, or sunk!”

“Buonaparte has learned Nelson’s lesson. He will build more ships. Tilsit provides him with all that he requires: the timber of Europe — the labourers of a continent — and the command of every dockyard from Trieste to Cuxhaven. It is merely a matter of time before we fall to the French.”

I was silent an instant in horror. “But what is to be done?”

“Only the impossible. We must draw off the Monster — we must throw bodies into the Peninsula, into the maw of Napoleon’s cannon — to buy time for the Crown. We must bend all our energy towards outwitting the Enemy’s spies, by land or by sea. That is why I sailed to Portugal a year since — and why I am come tonight in haste to Southampton, in pursuit of a dangerous woman.”

The ship’s bells tolled the watch; a cavalcade of pounding feet outside the cabin door heralded the end of one crew’s vigil above decks, and the commencement of another’s. The brig rolled gently beneath my feet, a movement as mesmerising and soporific as Lord Harold’s voice. I had lost reckoning of time as surely as I had lost the will to leave him. My mother, Castle Square, the bereaved boys. . all had vanished, insubstantial as a whiff of smoke. Lord Harold moved to the cabin’s stern gallery, his gaze fixed on the lights of Southampton that twinkled now across the Water. When he spoke, it was as though to himself alone — or to some shadow present only in memory.

“Did I understand what she was, that first night I saw her? Did I recognise the cunning behind Beauty’s mask? August 1807, the Governor-General’s ball, Oporto. Well before the fall of the Portuguese crown, or the siege of the English colony. She wore capucine silk, and a demi-turban of the same hue.[7] Ravishing, that heated colour entwined in her dark hair, suggestive of the seraglio. One could hardly glimpse her countenance for the sea of gentlemen pressing their suit.”

I had an idea of the scene: a vivid swarm of English and Portuguese, the warmth of August, the mingled scents of sandalwood and tuberose in the humid air. Her cheeks would be flushed with heat and admiration; her gaze, despite the press of other men, would find Lord Harold’s. Were they worthy of each other? Both strong-willed, calculating, careless of opinion? The attachment must be immediate. Did he dance with her that night, under the Iberian moon?

“We were introduced by the Governor-General himself — Sophia simpering at her old friend, allowing her hand to linger a trifle too long in the roué’s paw. He knew my late husband, she told me a little later, in the days when I was happy.”

“She is widowed, then?”

“Three years now, and left with considerable wealth, if the French do not strip her of it. I should judge her at present to be not much older than yourself, Jane — but she has ambitions the like of which should never stir in your quiet breast.”

What would you know, my lord, of a lady’s ambitions?

What can you perceive of Jane? I thought. But I said only:

“You mistrust her — and yet, there is admiration in your voice.”

“Does the hussar respect his opponent, as the sabre whirls overhead?” he demanded impatiently.

“Of course I admire her. Sophia Challoner possesses the wit and courage of a man, honed by a woman’s subtlety.”

“And is it the subtlety you cannot forgive — or the wit, my lord?”

“That is ungenerous.” A spark from those cold grey eyes, disconcertingly akin to anger. He deserted the stern gallery and threw himself into a chair.

“She came to me the morning after the ball, and invited me to tour the Port factory in her phaeton. The late Mr. Challoner, you will comprehend, was a considerable merchant in the trade. His two nephews manage the business on Sophia’s account—”

“She has no children?”

“Challoner was an elderly man when she beguiled him, Sophia no more than seventeen; an early trial of her powers. The nephews, prosperous young men, are divided between admiration of her charms and distrust of her motives. Challoner left all his property — including his business concerns — to

Sophia alone. The nephews, naturally, had lived in expectation of the inheritance.”

“I perfectly comprehend the circumstances.”

“She was utterly charming that morning: entertaining me with good jokes and stories of the Oporto worthies; driving her pair with a competent hand; leading me with authority through the warehouses and the aging casks. I did not perceive it at the time — but she acted by design. She hoped to gain my confidence and, with a little effort, my heart.”

“She had tired of playing the widow?”

“Sophia never plays at anything, Jane — except, perhaps, at love. In all else, she moves with deadly earnest. No, it was not marriage she desired — but intimacy.”

“And is this the full measure of her guilt, my lord? That she presumed to trifle with Lord Harold’s heart?”

“She is guilty of treason, Jane,” he returned harshly. “Nothing more or less than the absolute betrayal of all our trust and hope.”

“That is a perilous charge to level at any Englishwoman.”

“Well do I know it! But I have my proofs. The French instructed Sophia Challoner as to my true purpose in descending upon Oporto. She understood that I was sent to observe the weakening of Portuguese resolve — the betrayal of the Crown’s trust — and the purpose in French guile. She knew that I was in daily communication with the British Government. Her object, in mounting a flirtation, was to pry loose my secrets — and sell them to the Monster.”

“But why, my lord? Why should any child of Britain so betray her duty to the King?”

His gaze darkened. “I do not know. Out of love, perhaps, for a ruthless Frenchman? Or is it mere jealousy that drives me to suspect that the Enemy owns her heart? Does she move me still, though I apprehend what she is? Hell’s teeth, Jane, but I have been a fool!”

He looked so miserable — nay, so shaken in his own confidence — that I grasped his hand tightly in my own. “What have you done, my lord?”

“I have talked when I should not. I have trusted too easily. I have allowed myself to be flattered and deceived.”

“Then you have been a man.”

He lashed me with his eyes. “When I quitted your side in September of 1806, I was in considerable torment.”

I knew that he spoke the truth; I had witnessed his attempt to win the heart of an extraordinary young woman — Lady Harriot Cavendish, second daughter of the Duke of Devonshire. He had failed, and for a time, had disdained Society.

“Sophia, with her considerable arts, perceived how I might be worked upon.” His voice was raw with bitterness. “I was too susceptible; I gradually fell into her thrall. She was — she is—beautiful, possessed of superior understanding, and careless of the world’s opinion. She is also brutal, calculating, and governed solely by interest. If she possesses a heart, I have not found it.”

“And yet — the affair did not endure. Your eyes were opened to her true character?”

“Vimeiro opened them, Jane.”

“Our victory over the French? Was Mrs. Challoner cast into despair?”

“Not at all. Vimeiro was her finest hour! All of England wonders at the easy terms of the armistice: that the French were allowed to depart the field with their lives and goods intact, escorted home in British ships. What the public cannot know is that the dishonourable document, that has proved the ruin of Generals Dalrymple and Burrard, was forged at the insistence — the wiles — the subtle persuasion of Sophia Challoner, who seduced Dalrymple even as she dallied with me!”

“Then it is Dalrymple, my lord, and not yourself who must be called the fool.”

He released my hand and rose restlessly from his chair. “Jane, when I encountered them together, I behaved as a jealous lover. I very nearly called Dalrymple out — nearly killed the man in a duel! — when I should have divined immediately how much the wretch had betrayed.”

“The armistice is over and done these two months at least,” I cried. “Do not goad yourself with painful memories!”

“Do you think that one battle makes a war? Even now, Sir John Moore and the thousands of men under his command await the brutal blow that Marshal Soult must deliver. Moore does not know where Soult is encamped; he must outmaneuver and outmarch a chimera. Intelligence of the Enemy is absolutely vital — as is complete disguise of Moore’s intentions. Can you guess, Jane, what should be the result if our General’s plans were delivered to the French?”

“Is that likely?”

“I live in dread of its occurrence. That is why I have come to Southampton.”

“Leagues upon leagues divide the Channel from the Peninsula, my lord.”

“But the Peninsula’s most potent weapon—

Sophia Challoner — is here, Jane,” he said softly. “She quit Oporto in a Royal Navy convoy this September, and has taken up residence in her late husband’s house.”

I revolved the intelligence an instant in silence.

“Can even such a woman do harm from so great a distance?”

He took my face between his hands and stared into my eyes. “That, Jane, is what I intend for you to discover.”